Goodwood Festival of Speed adds drifting competition

This month’s Goodwood Festival of Speed will for the first time sport a drifting competition category.

The annual UK event usually features fast cars taking to the hillclimb, but this year organisers have snared some big names to find a turn of speed while getting in touch with a car’s lock stops.

Catch my Drift? Of course you do; that’s actually the official name for the competition of tyre-squealing, high-powered machines born to keep sideways.

YouTube sensation Ken Block will powerslide his 634kW Mustang around the Formula One paddock, while European drifting champion James Deane will return in his 560kW Nissan S14 after last year setting a world record for longest continual drift – at an astonishing 28.5 kilometres.

Aussie drifting champion Luke Fink will compete in his V8-engined Nissan S13, while across the ditch New Zealander ‘mad’ Mike Whiddet will take to the course in a Mazda RX-7.

Norway’s top sideways man Joachim Waargaard will enter a brand new BMW M4, Polish contender Piotr Wiecek will look to be across-ways for days in his 745kW Budmat R34 Skyline, and at the lesser end of the power spectrum, another Polish bloke Kuba Przygonski will steer a Toyota 86.

While drift cars have displayed their wares before, this is the first time in Goodwood’s 22 year history that those participating in the Japanese sideways sport will be allowed to competitively tackle the 1.86 kilometre hillclimb event.

“With the sport of drifting’s popularity exploding, now is the perfect time to unleash Extreme Drift Allstars at the Festival of Speed,” explained chairman and CEO of Extreme Drift Allstars Alistair Gosling.

With a roll-call of exotics rolling into Brit fields, the Goodwood Festival of Speed dubbed the ‘moving motor show’ will run across three days from June 25 to 28.